Unto the Blooded
by Red Guardsman
Summary: Marked by mutation, baptised in blood, raised to the head of a million supermen, slain by his fallen brother. Yet the tale of the Ninth Primarch, the Blood Angel of Baal, is not yet at an end. The Spirit of Man is not so easily quenched - and the ghosts of legions dead cry for vengeance.


It was in combat that an angel lay dying. His body broken beyond even his kind's superhuman resilience, by his traitorous brother no less. He had called upon his fallen brother to answer for his crimes; in the middle of his domain no less, alone and surrounded by the traitor's men. But it was with his brother's claw and mace that the angel fell, until their Father had descended upon the traitor.

They fought; one for his own traitorous greed, enriched by the power of the incalculable things that preyed on souls, and the other for the betterment of Mankind, to fight to free the human race from superstition and predation from those very things.

Between them the Angel lay broken and weak, though not quite dead.

He was Sanguinius, Primarch of the XI Legion, the Blood Angels. In truth, he was not the actual son of their father - him and all of the Primarchs had been genetically cloned, and grown by their father's hand and immeasurable skill in the art of genetics. Sanguinius had been spirited away by the Chaos Gods as they sought to undo their father's work.

His brother was Horus, formerly the Primarch of the Luna Wolves and the greatest, favoured general of their father. Now, he was twisted into something beyond that - greater in the scope of his power, but now his fallen brother was twisted, in body and soul. He had given himself up to the Dark Gods of Chaos - the ultimate betrayal to mankind, and the Imperium which even as young as it was, now fell to betrayal.

And their father - the one who even now could not kill his son - was the God-Emperor of Mankind. Head of the Imperium and ruler of a thousand million worlds. It was him who had guided Humankind from the shadows since they had been in naught but mud huts and caves. It was he who brought Mankind up from the Age of Strife, and into the Great Crusades which he had forged.

Even this close to death, he felt the newest curses upon his line; the twin curses of Ka'Bhandka, the blasted Greater Daemon of Khorne that he thought he had broken upon Signus Prime. He was a psyker - even this close to death, he sensed the Black Rage and the Red Thirst alike raging against his sons in the Blood Angels. His father cried something out, perhaps a reproachful oath to his corrupted brother, Horus. From a backstep, his fallen brother's boot clanged against the near-dead Primarch's armour. As it was, he could not move. His wounds were simply too grievous. Even by normal convention, he would not have been able to survive the wounds he was dealt.

His brother and his father clashed above him. Sanguinius was too blinded, by pain from his body and the twin psychic curses which were wreaking havoc upon his mind. It was all he could do to lie there, and wait out the fight. It was some time later when there was a lull. Perhaps the two were tired, even by the standards of the Primarch, who was boosted by the monstrous power of the Warp and the millenia-old psyker.

Sanguinius found himself unable to move, though he still felt blood trickling out of his wounds, and he still heard it drip against the floor. At the edges of his active senses, he heard the awed muttering of those few in the room. And he heard breathing; calm, quiet. Almost peaceful. It wasn't his own. If the winged Primarch were to guess, it would be that of a mortal human. How was that possible? No Imperial Army personnel had been deployed into the ship, and even if they had, they would likely not have lasted long against the horrific, malevolent evil emnating from the body of the ship.

The two seemed to be paused, or perhaps they had outright halted in their clash. And as they did, the angel saw.

Not through his eyes, no. At that moment, Sanguinius seemed to have no motor control. He could not move his fingers or his eyes - rather, he thought his eyes did not work at all. And it was then that he realised he hadn't been listening with his ears. As he became aware of the fact that he was dead, and... stuck? It seemed an appropriate term. He was in a perpetual state of limbo - within himself he held no life, and yet he was not dead. His living soul was not quite in the Warp, and as such he was invisible to the things that infested this ship. Odd, that.

He saw the mortal spark stand.

The mortal - Sanguinius woozily saw through the aether that Ollanius Pius was his name - was simply that. He was a mortal man, with little to nothing beyond his flak jacket, helmet, lasgun and uniform.

Compared to the blinding, mighty sun blazing with the will, hope and fury of every man, woman and child from all corners of the Imperium - the legendarily mighty psyker and destroyer of men that was the Emperor, the mortal was nothing.

And against the twisted, jagged-edged wound in reality, brimming with the unholy power of the Warp, the Betrayer that was Horus, this man was no more than a faint shimmer in the darkness, looking so easily like he would be put out in naught but a gust of wind.

He was a man.

A mere man. Against the demigod that was the angel's fallen brother, who was enfused with the will of the Dark Gods of Chaos. The combi-weapon that Horus bore upon his left hand was larger than the mortal man's torso, and yet the man did not flinch away.

He could have turned his weapon on himself. He could succumb to the voices that the psyker Primarch could hear. He could have simply broken down, gibbering like so many trillions would do.

Yet the soldier held his ground without fear or hesitation.

Sanguinius was humbled.

Horus advanced, no anger being spared on the mortal's part, only disgust. And even as the Guardsman raised his lasgun and fired but once to no effect, the corrupted Primarch callously swiped at the offending maggot before him. And with but one blow, as a giant may swat at a gnat, the heroic Guardsman was no more, rent apart by Horus's claw.

The sudden tidal wave of psyker activity was titanically oppressive, even to the very things that infested the Warp. Sanguinius could sense through eyes - though they were not his own - his father the Emperor rising to his feet, head and eyes glowing with an awesome light that belied the tempestuous power within the immortal psyker.

His corrupted brother shrank back from the storm of energy being gathered by their father, and even the shadows retreated under the thrum of energy, like the air before a thunderstorm magnified a million times that sparked through the air in torrential, hateful notes of energy.

Then, all was light, and a pain that was vast, and unimaginable in scale washed over him. He felt his very soul begin to writhe and shudder, collapsing in upon itself. And with a tearing detected by senses beyond the physical, Sanguinius fell through reality.

In the very first instant, He knew that it was the Warp, the Immaterium that was the domain of the Great Enemy. He felt the touch of things not meant to be against both his flesh and mind. And then, his whole world was pain as Warpfire caught alight upon him and his soul.

Agonizing pain that at once burned like searing magma and froze to the core like the chill touch of space ripped through every cell in his body, and every spark in his mind. He still could not open his eyes, but even without them he saw the horror of the Warp. His flailing, struggling fall carved wide troughs and simmering trails through the fabric of the Empyrean, sluicing open new ripples and forming waves in the proverbial miasma. With eyes both real and aetheric, he saw the wake formed, and the afterimages of things that presented themselves to each of his senses, feeding on fear, hope, anger, pleasure and despair.

In place of bubbles trailing in the wake of a water-sailing ship, there were faint afterimages of horrors from beyond reality, a beating human heart echoing with dread, the millions of foul scrabbling talons of an uncountable number of daemons, the jagged maw of an unreal entity cloaked in blood. He saw lights without end, that rushed and cascaded and tore into each other. Lights and Forces of unthinkable substance ruled this realm.

He felt his mind be blasted, shattered and reformed. He lost his thoughts.

The angel Sanguinius lost his sense of self.

He became It.

It was an entity, a force. A mind, lost and prey to a million predators.

It fell.

* * *

Some time passed before It regained Its thoughts. It could think; did that mean that It existed? It could sense things, beyond Its reach. It heard Things.

Things howled. Their howls were many, and loud. They howled for countless, fleeting wants.

The Things came upon him next. They took from It.

It became certain; It indeed existed. If the Things were taking from It, then It existed for Things to take from.

It was fast becoming aware of the Things. Of how they acted, of what they did. It had stuff that the Things wanted. The Things were relentless in their Taking; they ripped from It so much of the stuff that made up It. They were fast and slow at once, picking carefully and tearing without abandon at the same time.

It kept falling.

Why was It falling? What was falling? Where was it falling to?

As It fell, It saw the omnicoloured mass that was its existence fade and thin. It only increased the Malevolence that was first obscured by the Rage, the Sensation, the Change and the Rot. The Malevolence grew and grew, even as the Rage and the Sensation fluctuated around It, fighting to try and pull It back, and into their regions of the timeless tides that swamped the souls.

Souls. That was what It was. It was a Soul. It faintly remembered other Souls, who were too weak to resist the Things tearing them apart. It wondered - did they know they existed too? Did the other souls feel their Essence being taken as well?

It feared not the Things anymore - It had no more Essence to give. Thus, the Things had left it. But the Rage and the Sensation fought all the harder to stop its fall - did they want something with It?

It was battered about in the tide. All of the Things, the Four, the unceasing battery of everything around it forced it in jagged-edged storms from one Thing to a Force to another Thing and back again, or elsewhere to Nothing.

Then, as the Sensation faltered and the distant cries of pained children reached their crescendo, the Change ripped It from the Sensation's grasp. Essence It did not know still existed spilled out from rents of food-stuff in It. The Sensation bristled and tightened its hold. The Change melted through the Sensation and separated It from everything.

The two fought over It - Change became Power, and Sensation became Excess. Power grew, and Excess grew in turn for the very growth held by the Power fuelled its enemy all the more. The two locked themselves in struggle.

Then the Rot - now the Despair - crashed in, in time with the Rage; which was now the Bloodshed.

They pushed from everywhere, so to Nowhere It fell. The reality-separating force which kept It apart from the stuff around it started to ripple, and turn. It slipped and flitted and slided and melted and blew and coalesced around It.

It experienced pressure. It was forced, in all directions at once. It was flooded with sensation and pain.

It impacted Something, and tore through.

Yet It kept falling.


End file.
